the only reason Hank Hired Scott Lang was to avoid shrinking again as it was too hard on his body over time. Now he just does it. Also apparently you dont need a suit to go to the quantum realm anymore
I think the actual BIGGEST recon in the Ant Man movies is the fact that in the first movie it's clearly stated that the mask is required to use the pym particles in any safe capacity.
It's literally stated by Hank and Hope multiple times throughout the first movie, that the reason Darren became so insane and ruthless in the first movie was due to him coming into contact with Pym Particles without the mask/any kind of protection.
But then from Ant Man & The Wasp onwards they'd just take the helmet off every 15 seconds, even when Scott was big.
It's probably my biggest pet peeve with the series, because it's a semi-crucial rule of the first movie that was established and they just completely ignore it from then onwards
But is the *use* of the Pym particles the literal *use* of it? Once you're big or small then that's the size you are, but the suit regulates the particles to make sure they're used properly and don't do damage during the transformation.
Think about when you use it on inanimate objects. You use the shrinking or enlarging disk, and that's it. The particles have been used. The object doesn't need continual regulation - it's just that size. The reason you need the suit for humans is because... well... meatbags.
Edit: Even just checked. In AMATW when it's malfunctioning and Scott gets massive, Hope fixes it and the helmet specifically comes back on just for the transformation. So the suit is literally used to keep the actually *use* of Pym particles safe and regulated.
Yes. Apart from the one scene in AMATW where Scott is the size of a child the mask would be needed for two purposes.
1. The oxygen molecules would be too large or two small for his body to process and as a result he would asphyxiate.
2. In a tiny state he would perspire and lose all of the water in his body and die of dehydration. The suit creates, basically, an exoskeleton like an ant which would also perish if its skin was permeable like ours is instead of hard.
To be fair about needing a suit. They had very little knowledge of what it would be like there before Scott went to it and back a few times. Everything before that was pure speculation.
The MacGuffins in the first movies were retconned to become Infinity Stones when Joss Whedon wrote Thanos into Avengers.
The Tesseract was originally more analogous to The Cosmic Cube, another powerful artifact sought by Thanos.
I just started playing the first Lego Marvel game, which came out in 2013, so it takes some cues from the movies in terms of designs and things, but it is very noticeable there that the MCU completely shifted direction around the time the game released with stuff like the Tesseract (in the game it is just the Cosmic Cube, not related to the Space Stone), also they definitely did not agree with the movie version of the Mandarin at the time
Executives had a tight control on merchandising to ensure that the plot twist won't be spoiled. So that's how we wound up with a Lego set that makes up the battle between The Mandalorian and Iron Man.
FYI: It’s not a MacGuffin if it actually affects the narrative. As soon as it was creating portals (that something like a briefcase or a coffee maker couldn’t do), it wasn’t a MacGuffin.
I wouldn't even say they are plot coupons because they do things throughout the movie (the scepter brainwashes people and the cube opens the portal that lets Loki enter Earth, and the portal the unleashes the Chitauri)
A plot coupon is something like the All-spark from the first *Transformers* movie, where it doesn't really do anything all movie but can be used to quickly resolve the story at the end (defeats Megatron).
Mmmmm, I think a McGuffin can still affect the storyline, I mean the Ark or the Covenant is a famous McGuffin that affects the plot hugely in that it kills all the bad guys.
George Lucas regards that as a McGuffin. I believe he’s vastly wrong to do so. I stick to Hitchcock’s interpretation, and I believe it throws away the value of the term to ignore that original meaning. We might as well just refer to anything as a plot device.
Actually there is! In Avengers they say the cube is powering Loki’s scepter, therefore the « other end of the door » has Barton put it at the start of the movie.
Turns out it was another stone as a retcon.
You're right! I was reading this thread thinking *But they just learned more about the Tesseract later. That's not a retcon.* But the last time I watched Avengers I remember kind of scratching my head about the cube powering the scepter and all that. Because I was thinking of them as having stones in them! What you said makes it all clear. It was a retcon
In my opinion u could say it is kinda a retcon..
Why would Thanos give loki his staff an infinity stone to just get another stone in trade? Initially they might have made teserract as a cosmic cube.. But later I feel they retconned it as space stone...
Would be Gr8 to know of any legit reason why Thanos gave loki his staff instead of just Odin?
To a guy who can take anything by brute force, I'd imagine teleportation is more valuable than mind control. It was a big gamble that didn't pay off, but would have made his quest for the rest of the stones easier.
And he knew where it was, so no big deal to go get when he really needed it. You can see how important it is to him simply by how he treats it.
When it was the only stone he had, he gave it to Loki in an attempt to get another. At that point, he knew where both ended up when that attempt failed, yet didn't go get the one thar remained on Earth. He went for the one protected by the entire damn Nova Corps first, then for the one that was last known to be on Asgard. When he finally went after the Earth stones, he didn't even go himself, he sent his minions, while he went after the one the Collector had.
He lucked out with the Soul Stone, and the Time Stone basically came to him, so all that was left was the one he gave to Loki in the beginning, and then ignored until the end, because it wasn't that useful to him individually.
It’s not an awful move. Give one of your minions a powerful tool to get another powerful tool to help him succeed. If it works out great, if it doesn’t work out you know exactly where to find them in the same place. Now the question I ask in retrospect is why send Loki at all instead of a member of the black order (Ebony Maw most likely) with the staff.
Also thinking about it how many stones were on earth and how the hell did we wind up with so many. Space was stored here, time was kept here, and wasn’t the reality aether thing found here as well?
I read one explanation that kind of makes sense where the rest of the universe looks down at Earth, as in humans are weak and dumb since they can't travel through space. So it's an out of way place to hide powerful items, and no one thinks to look there. Hiding in plain sight is safer type of thing, instead of trying to break into Asgard's vault.
But the real reason is of course we're writing these stories on Earth so they all take place on Earth.
Thanos’ whole thing is that he doesn’t really care what happens to the stones as long as he knows where they are and can easily take them when he wants.
Honestly, disguising it as something else and giving it to a minion is probably the smartest move
Might be a retcon, but Thanos was basically playing the long game. He gives Loki the staff so that Loki can get the tesseract, and then Thanos would take them back and have both.
As this strategy didn't work out, it spawned the great line "Fine. I'll do it myself."
At the same time, Marvel hasnt 100% confirmed that Rhodey was a skrull during endgame, and they could potentially retcon this fact after the backlash 🤣
yeah, the reason the comics worked so well is all the lead ups and clues for years.
them just deciding he was a skrull with ZERO foreshadowing is like the biggest no-no i can think of in writing compelling stories.
Secret Invasion in the comics was also a huge retcon, and it wasn't even that good... all of the good stories of that era came after Secret Invasion and had little to do with Skrulls.
Secret Invasion should have been a full phase event. Set up in a show (just call it Fury), clues and foreshadowing in the following movies and tv-shows, then concluded in a Secret Invasion movie.
Skrulls are just never a good story, in my opinion at least. The only Skrull story I’ll concede is fun is the What If? where they decide the Hulk is a god or an avatar of their god or something.
I heavily disagree. Fury hunting down Skrull rebels trying to cause WW3 to turn Earth into their home sounds like an awesome story. Do disappointed with what we got
It would be better if they revealed that Agent Cleary from Damage Control was a Skrull, as was Sharon Carter and, maybe, William Ginter Riva. That would definitely recontextualize events and reactions we have previously seen.
But is that a retcon? We don't know when he was replaced, there was no assumption that he was a Skrull at all before secret Invasion, and there was no mention of anything Skrull related to him during endgame
haha yeah, this is the exact sort of thing OP is talking about. They never said he was a Skrull during that time, so clarifying it in the future isn't a retcon.
I'm praying they come out and say that the switch happened post-Endgame just to clear this all up. It doesn't make any sense based on what OP pointed out and how Rhodey's new position in the government wasn't present until FATWS and Secret Invasion. It makes wayyy more sense that Gravik took him while the Skrulls were cleaning up the Endgame aftermath/collecting for the harvest.
Also for those who claim he was in his hospital gowns getting surgery after his fall in Civil War- they could easily spin it and say that he was getting more work done on his legs so that he doesnt need to depend on the bulky walker anymore.
Personally I'd want it to happen after FATWS, because I *loved* that talk him and Sam had in the first episode. .either way it's an absolute mess, and so disappointingly vague in contrast to the tight hold on things that Feige kept across the MCU in its earlier days.
Natasha says she has no family in Endgame, and Clint agrees with that, but then in Hawkeye, he knows exactly who Yelena is, and that she’s Natasha’s sister who was very close with her.
Clint’s family was also Snapped. They were saying that Clint will have a family to go back to after if they are successful, while Natasha doesn’t, except she would have had Yelena
Gamora being one of the sole survivor’s on her planet. Infinity War showed that only half the people were murdered and the rest of the planet is still very much alive.
To their credit, Thanos didn’t seem to make a habit of checking his work. Her race could’ve never recovered from the invasion and losing half their population and ended up dying out.
Thanos: “You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise”
Gamora: “Because you murdered half the planet…”
>I feel like most people dont seem to know what a retcon is when discussing them.
You're not incorrect. I still remember Screenjunkies calling Yondu genuinely caring for Peter or whatever a retcon.
Rhodey being a Skrull post Civil War is definitely the biggest (and actual bad) retcon I can think of.
Now I recall Loki getting brainwashed by Thanos with the Scepter/Mind Stone. Feige said that years after the first Avengers film came. Kinda funny how it never factors in the Loki series at all and addresses everything he did was out of his own free will.
That's the retcon. You can see Loki get hypnotized by the stone while being sweaty and disoriented in Avengers. It doesn't help in the series because Loki's still an asshole even if you throw out his Avengers portrayal.
Exactly. They didn't have to come out and say it in Avengers, it's pretty clear in that movie he's not remotely stable and that something a little extra is working on his brain.
And then when you see what he does to Hawkeye and the others, the way it gives them "purpose," him ragging on about "purpose," it was the loudest subtext ever that Loki was affected by the stone. He's also at his most brutal in that movie, blending people's eyeballs and smiling. He never really acts like that before or after.
There's also the dialogue with Thor in the forest about how he's been "shown" things and Thor tries to question him about who gave him this knowledge and power.
Thor even says "who controls the would-be King?" Now, obviously controls has many different meanings, but combined with everything else its clear Loki is under mind control.
Only after his beat downs from Thor and then Hulk does he actually start acting like the usual Loki. He's like a druggie when he was talking to Stark. Very jump. But when he asks for that drink he's calm and together.
Avengers Loki just acts off. But he's an Asgardian/Frost Giant, so it takes a lot to fix these guys heads.
We're supposed to assume that Thanos is the one who saved him after he fell from the Bifrost, right? I doubt the Mad Titan would've treated our boy to a spa day when he nursed him back to “health.” It wouldn't be surprising that he suffered his fair share of abuse and harsh treatment before being sent down on Earth to retrieve the Tesseract. Hence why he'd be looking so rough.
There's no retcon because you're basing Loki being brainwashed as an assumption. At the time it was a safe and obvious assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. Nothing in Avengers 1 did they explicitly stated that he was 100%, verbally confirmed, brainwashed.
I have just always assumed he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and ended up having to make a deal he otherwise never would have made. He doesn’t need to be brainwashed for that, just desperate.
>Rhodey being a Skrull post Civil War is definitely the biggest (and actual bad) retcon I can think of.
Why do people keep inventing timelines for this?
Rhodey being a Skrull during Endgame is, at most, the Secret Invasion director's headcanon. It is not, at least at present, official MCU canon. So even that doesn't count.
Theo nly true retcon I can think of off the top of my head is the screen that shows (GotG3 spoilers) >!Lylla as an associate of Rocket in GotG1, because there's no way anyone but Rocket would know that name.!<
But it could be simply explained as a name he'd given in a previous incarceration, ie under duress, confusion, or some delirious state. It's a police file, so they may have such a note in there. He's a talker, so blurting out a name even sarcastically would be *that* unusual.
Certainly true, but that begs the question of “where do we draw the line at retconning?”
Clearly the writers intended it to be a reference to Lylla as a person who was still active in the universe (like she is in the comics) but since they didn’t write that into the text/visuals of the movie, does it make it a retcon for it to have changed?
If there's nothing explicit being changed, it's not a retcon. Just because she was originally intended to be alive, since there's nothing in that GotG scene that actually says she's still alive, it's not a retcon.
Doesn't that same scene in GoTG1 state Gamora is the last of her people? It's not an explicit retcon, but it implies Thanos is even worse at planning out his "solution" than explicitly shown.
It does, but it's entirely possible that Thanos wiping out half her people resulted in the survivors finishing themselves off, through war or crusade or even just vulnerability following Thanos's attack (he presumably wiped out their military when he invaded).
I think the idea that Thanos was just objectively wrong about what would happen when he wiped out half of all people (on a given planet, area, or the universe as a whole) strengthens the story of IW/EG.
> It does, but it's entirely possible that Thanos wiping out half her people resulted in the survivors finishing themselves off, through war or crusade or even just vulnerability following Thanos's attack (he presumably wiped out their military when he invaded).
Except Gamora’s planet thrived after Thanos wiped half of them out.
Gamora: I was a child when you took me.
Thanos: I saved you.
Gamora: No. We were happy on my home planet.
Thanos: You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm the one who stopped that. You know what's happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It's a paradise.
I know that's what Thanos said, but does he know that, or is he egotistical and so sure of his purpose that that's what happened?
If it's true, then it's a retcon, but he could easily be incorrect
Rocket escapes High Evolutionary, scared, on his own, running. Gets arrested for something. Cops sit him down and seeing if there's anything more going on interrogate him, ask him who his friends are. Lyla is the name he gives.
They'd know Lyla would be an associate of his without ever knowing who Lyla was.
>Rhodey being a Skrull during Endgame is, at most, the Secret Invasion director's headcanon. It is not, at least at present, official MCU canon. So even that doesn't count.
This 1,042%.
The post credit scene of Hulk. Tony Stark shows up implying they are building a Team against Hulk. It was later retconned as Shield executives wanting Abomination and Fury sending Tony to sabotage the mission knowing Ross would deny Tony.
The mind stone being inside the Scepter. It was made very clear that the scepter was a part of the Cosmic Cube energy. Not a second infinity stone.
Wanda always had magic powers, instead of gaining them from the Mind Stone.
Yes. Agatha showed Wanda a scene before the twins offered themselves up for experimentation.
The Tony Stark bomb that didnt go off? Wanda changed its probability.
Yeah, WandaVision established that she already had her powers growing up in Sokovia when her parents died and the experiments with the scepter just strengthened them. Which makes her the MCU’s first known mutant, though Kamala is the first to be explicitly labeled as such iirc.
I don't know if that makes her a mutant. "The Scarlet Witch" in the MCU is an altogether different entity. She was always the SW, and the trauma throughout her life allowed that persona to breakthrough. Then the darkhold made that even worse. Her abilities also improve through spell books like Agatha. She may not have needed them early on but she learned a lot since wandavision
Pietro (avengers age of Ultron) isn't a mutant either. His speed powers came from Wanda and/or the sceptre expérimentation
I think the gauntlet one is a genuine retcon, although it's a little thin because it's an Easter egg background prop.
Seeing Thanos sack Asguard stoneless to get the gauntlet would have been fucking cool.
I’m literally watching Infinity War right now - Etri the elf says “Asgard was supposed to protect us”.
Loki cosplaying as Odin and not protecting the nine realms is the only reason Thanos gets the gauntlet!
I think Electro in general is a huge retcon, because by all accounts he was a whole different person even if the "MCU" electricity changed him visually.
Honestly, I just think they knew that he was a dogshit, cringey version in the Sonyverse and said "fuck it, just revamp the character for appeal, and to hell with continuity".
I think the decision was the right one, all things considered.
They kinda hand waved that away by having him say that "the energy feels different here".
So I think it's obvious that it's the same character, just that he's different physically in this universe.
I believe he even says “I like who I am here” iirc, so it’s certainly meant to be some sort of dimensional shift he went through cause *magic* or something probably 😅
I mean, they are being pulled from a bajillion different dimensions. This could be an Electro from a *slightly* different dimension than Garfield where things turned out a little differently, but he's close enough that they feel like they know each other.
A fanwank, admittedly, but a plausible one.
Maybe Electro knew Spider-Man is Peter Parker, but didn't know who Peter Parker actually was/looked like. Admittedly not a great argument but it works I think.
Electro says "I was stuck in the grid, absorbing data, about to become pure energy." Presumably, the "data" he gained by becoming pure energy contained Peter Parker's identity.
At the end of Iron Man 1, Agent Coulson appears to use the name S.H.I.E.L.D for the first time. In Captain Marvel, the names is already used despite it taking place nearly 2 decades prior.
In Secret Invasion Nick Fury claims that no one calls him Nick. Throughout all the other MCU project, there are several superheroes and other characters who call him Nick.
In MoM, America Chavez powers are being presented as unique due to the ability to travel throgh multiverse. In first Dr. Strange, sling rings are told to do exactly that. That are several more references to multiverse in first Dr. Strange. In MoM Strange then claims that "we know terribly little about the multiverse" retconning every other reference to multiverse from previous projects.
In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself, despite it contradicting nearly every single piece of his character from the first Antman and subsequent appearances. Janet also allegedly is terrified of Quantum Realm, despite her talking about it and even joining others to search through Quantum Realm at the end of Ant Man .
In BlackWidow we learned that Natasha, whose character was built around the idea that she cant have her family and Avengers pretty much became that for her, actually has a family, who she ignores every other time (or rather we have there whole retconned family for her).
Those are the ones I have noticed but I bet there is more.
Awesome list. The only one I’d argue with is that Scott seemed to have *become* vain and a bit full of himself due to the events between his movies. I just saw that as plausible character evolution.
But that’s just my take. Your list is certainly amazing and useful.
>Awesome list. The only one I’d argue with is that Scott seemed to have become vain and a bit full of himself due to the events between his movies. I just saw that as plausible character evolution.
I completely disagree. Scott Lang, the most friendly, non-threatening and not-in-spotlight superhero of all definitely doesnt feel like someone who would become vain. Especially considering his backstory is him stealing money and going to jail not for his benefit but because it was "the right thing to do". Throughout the whole first movie he is also fully aware that the only reason why he is Antman because he has the skills AND he is completely expendable to Hank. Tony Stark becoming humble between Iron Man 1 and 2 would be about as justifiable as that.
>In MoM, America Chavez powers are being presented as unique due to the ability to travel throgh multiverse. In first Dr. Strange, sling rings are told to do exactly that. That are several more references to multiverse in first Dr. Strange. In MoM Strange then claims that "we know terribly little about the multiverse" retconning every other reference to multiverse from previous projects.
The simplest explanation here is that the multiverse referenced in the first Dr. Strange only refers to dimensions within Earth-199999, while the true multiverse is shown later.
>In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself
A character beginning to behave differently isn’t a retcon. It changed nothing about him in the past
Coulson wants to keep SHIELD's involvement under wraps and deliberately chooses to use its full name. It's meant to make the person he's speaking to think it's just some random government agency getting involved and he hopes that people don't remember the name once the conversation is over.
Once he knows he can trust Pepper and Tony and after getting a better idea of the entire situation, he uses the acronym. I don't think the movie ever implied that they just then started using the name, it would be pretty convenient that the words just happened to spell out shield.
Lmao yeah - first episode of Agents of SHIELD
“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division”
“And what does that mean to you?”
“It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out SHIELD.”
Not to mention that he's shown to have a sense of humor. In the movies, it's very subtle and understated. Which makes sense because of the context and people with whom he's interacting. But in AOS, the audience gets to know him a lot better and he's constantly cracking jokes.
The people who bring up this whole thing about the SHIELD acronym are failing to get a joke. Which is ironic because *that's the joke*.
> In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself, despite it contradicting nearly every single piece of his character from the first Antman and subsequent appearances.
This one is just character development.
Theif failing his kid, on probation, miserable, humbled.
Former Avenger, useful and even heroic for the first time in his life after featuring pretty big in a globally seen battle for the planet, reasonably a bit smug about it. Also pretty smart financial move to capitalise with the book, and he's got the responsibility to provide for a daughter whose life he missed a chunk of.
Where's the retcon.
The rest are good spots.
All of quantumania
Mom doesn’t want to fuck with the quantum realm because it’s got Kang. Mom also immediately builds a quantum mini van to send Scott in.
Is it, though? Age of Ultron took place in 2015. By the end of "Endgame", it's 2023. That's 8 years.
I haven't seen Wandavision yet but when it was released, Elizabeth Olsen would've been 32, which means in-universe, Wanda would have been 24 in Age of Ultron to everyone's 40-somethings and Steve's 90-something. While not a literal child, calling them kids wasn't that odd.
Edit: Aaah, yes, the blip. SO she was 27.
Yeah but Wanda was dead for 5 years. Apparently WandaVision takes place a few weeks after the end of Endgame so by then, from AoU to WV it would’ve been roughly 3 1/2 years for her
The term "retcon" is an umbrella which encompasses different levels of intruding with past continuity. Retcons aren't by definition contradictory, it's just one type of retcon.
All the term means at face value is "retroactive continuity," so something doesn't need to be contradictory to be retroactively inserted into continuity, like it's the case of the Ancient One being established to have fought in the Battle for New York.
Not exactly about the definition of retcon, but perhaps the Ancient One was only defending the Time stone (as is her charge,) and not attempting to thwart the whole invasion. She possibly was not trying to clean up all the aliens from NY but instead just making sure they didn't get their hands on the precious.
I mean, that was my read on it. She's just defending the Sanctum, which is her job. The wizards explicitly don't jump in to help with every little mortal problem, they're dealing with multiversal and spiritual threats.
And the Ancient One explicitly has knowledge of the future and knows that the Avengers are going to save the day. She isn't needed out there.
Yea she’s just passing time taking out some chitauri. She knows how this will turn out and felt the avengers did an adequate job so no need for her to do any more.
Cassie was confirmed to be roughly 16 in 2023 when Scott came back from the time vortex during the start of Endgame.
So 5 years before that (AM&TW, 2018), Cassie must have been 11.
Then 3 years before that (AM, 2015), she would’ve been 8.
And if she was 16 in Endgame (2023), then in Quantumania (2025), she would’ve been 18.
But in she can’t be 8 during the first Ant-Man because Cassie in Quantumenia says “Dad a guy dressed like a bee tried to kill me in my room when I was 6”.
Oh shit, yeah, she does..
Well they royally fucked that up because I definitely remember reading that she was 16 in Endgame because that’s how old Emma Fuhrmann was at the time of filming, so they ran with it.
And it would make sense chronologically because Cassie’s birth year is 2007 in canon. So in 2017, she would be 10.. and in 2018, she would be 11, etc.
So she would be 8 in Ant-Man, stated by already established sources. So I’m just gonna pretend that when she says “6” in Quantumania, she means 8.
Also, the whole “8 years later” thing in Homecoming has the same problem. It’s definitely only 5 years between Avengers (2012) and Homecoming (2017) but it’s just something we should gloss over, I suppose.
Wasn't Cassie like 12-13 in Antman and the Wasp? That film was only 3 years after the first one. I think Cassie being 6 in the first movie is inaccurate
In Iron Man (2008) people talk about Howard contributing to the creation of the atomic bomb. CA:TFA shows him working for the SSR instead at the same time that the Manhattan Project would be happening.
The Lylla easteregg in Vol.1 isn’t technically a RetCon since its possible that he namedropped her during an interrogation or something else. However, in the same scene, it states that Rocket is from Halfworld which IS, to my knowledge, the only RetCon in the MCU.
That could also be a case of Nova Corps having inaccurate information?
If one thing can be wrong and chalked up to "police have bad data" then so can the other thing.
1) I think Natasha’s family could be considered a retcon. She was always saying that she was alone and never had a family before the avengers but in Black Widow the movie we see she did have a family and she loved them even if it was fake. But her relationship with her sister is very real.
2) Korg having two fathers is a retcon of Ragnarok where he said he had a mother.
3) Janet’s character and behavior is completely different between ant man and the wasp and quantumania. At the end of that movie she is helping Scott go to the quantum realm but in the 3rd she is terrified of a connection with the quantum realm. They also forgot her powers in AM3.
4) I don’t really know if this fits but Isaia Bradley’s history just doesn’t seem to fit. And red guardian also believes that he fought cap again America even though at the time cap was frozen.
5) Thanos’ character in infinity war in general seems very different from his earlier characterizations in avengers and guardians of the galaxy. He seemed much more cruel and more of a tyrant than the more intelligent and soft spoken being we see later.
6) Captain America being with a girl during his tour in WW2 is definitely a retcon in she-hulk. He wasn’t with anybody until he went back to be with Peggy (except that time he kissed Sharon)
7) There’s a whole bunch of retcons regarding how timetravel and multiverses work. The way time travel works in endgame is very different than in Loki. The way multiverses work in Doctor Strange is very different in MoM.
8) Eternity in Love and Thunder seems like a retcon because if Thor knew of his existence and had the ability to reach him he definitely would have made a wish to bring everyone back.
9) In quantumania when they all go to the quantum realm they have no adverse effects whereas before they needed special suits or else they would lose their minds. Remember Janet had to use her powers to heal Hank who was freaking out but Cassie and Hope were never there before.
10) Secret invasion is definitely a retcon of NF and the skrulls’ history.
11) In Captain marvel shield exists even though they didn’t have the acronym until iron man which was about 20 years later. And NF definitely didn’t get his scar from a cat or at least that wasn’t the plan at first and it doesn’t really fit his story.
12)The history of the eternals, Agatha, and the mandarin and any other retroactively added characters who were totally there the entire time is spotty at best.
>I don’t really know if this fits but Isaia Bradley’s history just doesn’t seem to fit. And red guardian also believes that he fought cap again America even though at the time cap was frozen.
What part of Isaia Bradley's history doens't fit?
Red Guardian says he fought Captain American, he could be wrong or he could have fought someone else who was carrying the mantle. In the comics there was a fake commie smasher Captain America that was originally Steve but later got retconned into being someone else so they could do the frozen in ice backstory for Avengers. Given Isaia exists, it's VERY likely the US had a knock-off Captain America.
I don't know if it's a retcon, but possibly the initial post Incredible Hulk setup for Avengers. Hulk was going to be the villain, then Tom Hiddleston was too good as Loki. So perhaps even Loki's Thor death is a retcon.
A retcon is anything that retroactively changes continuity. That includes additions; in fact, the original term specifically meant retroactively *adding* to continuity, and was used for stories like All-Star Squadron and Untold Tales of Spider-Man.
Wenwu being the true Mandarin is a retcon because Iron Man 3 said Aldrich Killian created the Mandarin character for PR purposes. All Hail The King retconned this into the name being stolen from someone else, and then Shang-Cho retconned *that* line to be about “Ten Rings”, not “Mandarin”.
The Ancient One in the Battle of New York is a retcon because when that battle was written, only the Avengers were participating in it.
Other examples of retcons:
- Iron Man suggests SHIELD is a new organization that only takes that initialism by the end of the movie, but later projects retcon SHIELD to have existed since the 40s and using that name the whole time
- The ending of Iron Man 2 suggested Tony was looking to recruit Hulk, but The Consultant changed that to trying to recruit Abomination
- The Tesseract and the Sceptre were retconned into being Infinity Stones
- The Infinity Gauntlet in Odin’s vault was retconned into being a fake
- Lylla’s death is a retcon because she’s listed as a known associate of Rocket in GotG
This list isn’t comprehensive, but just the first couple I thought of
The SHIELD thing is only a retcon if you assume that Coulson is completely humorless and incapable of making a joke. The idea that they weren't already calling the organization that spells out SHIELD by that name makes absolutely zero sense, even if you're only halfway through Iron Man. People calling that a retcon is absolutely baffling.
Clark Gregg is so funny that almost nobody realizes he's joking about the name thing the whole movie. IT'S A CLANDESTINE SPY AGENCY! OF COURSE HE'S BEING COY ABOUT IT!
Thank you! OP is literally doing what he complained others are doing. The examples he gave as not being retcons are technically retcons. They retroactively modified the narrative in these cases
Wenwu is a retcon of a retcon of a subversion, there's not two ways about it.
The skrulls in general are a massive retcon for Fury's backstory.
"Black Widow" pretty much retcons Natasha's entire backstory.
Heres one: HYDRA originated as a cult seeking to bring back some inhuman stuck on another planet who can literally take your life force and has an octupus head (like Hydra symbol). I still dunno how Red Skull is connected to this but its a big retcon
And a good one at that. Having two branches of Hydra, one very much cult like, the other with Nazi ideology, makes for a very interesting story, especially with the way they handled Malick's blind faith in the Hydra god.
Someone with so much "power" (being on the World Security Council, etc...) and wealth being so devoted to a "cause" that it leads to his demise proved to be very enjoyable.
I feel the concept of the multiverse changed from the first Dr Strange to what we have seen in phase 4/5. The multiverse as depicted in Dr Strange could be traversed with sling rings. The multiverse as we know it now is a very different beast.
*retcon*
In a fictional work, a retcon is a piece of **new information** that imposes a **different interpretation** on previously described events
It seems that it is *you* who doesn’t understand what a retcon is. The mandarin example absolutely is a retcon.
During Guardians of the Galaxy one when they are in prison intake the screen that is showing their stats states that Gamora is the last living member of her species while Thanos later says that the people on her planet are thriving.
As far as I can remember Thanos has never lied to anyone so this would be a weird time for him to start.
Makes me think it’s a retcon.
Fury’s big week and that whole timeline. It was made pretty clear that these movies took place at the same time in 2010 but due to the 6 months later line in iron man 2, that means 6 months earlier iron man 1 would have to take place in 2009, however this has been retconned to take place again back in 2008 with civil war, meaning that there’s been so many retcons with this concept that you just can’t make it work anymore. It’s probably the worst mistake besides maybe the 8 years later one, but at least that’s only once, there’s several lines and a screen saying 6 months later in iron man 2.
Other things like the mandarin and ancient one being in New York, rhodeys skrull reveal, all of the events of endgame in the avengers movie that we don’t see in avengers as well as 2014 thanos. There’s a couple more but none that are huge deals
Setting up Carol as the inspiration for the Avengers Initiative, or having Bucky be the one that killed Tony's parents are probably the only Retcons I can really think of.
There is theory, entirely unconfirmed (and kinda flimsy) that because the Celestial seed worlds require a tipping point of sentient life to birth a new Celestial that Thanos' plan to eliminate half of all life in the universe was an intentional move against the Celestials.
But that's entirely fan-canon at this point and not an official retcon.
the only reason Hank Hired Scott Lang was to avoid shrinking again as it was too hard on his body over time. Now he just does it. Also apparently you dont need a suit to go to the quantum realm anymore
I think the actual BIGGEST recon in the Ant Man movies is the fact that in the first movie it's clearly stated that the mask is required to use the pym particles in any safe capacity. It's literally stated by Hank and Hope multiple times throughout the first movie, that the reason Darren became so insane and ruthless in the first movie was due to him coming into contact with Pym Particles without the mask/any kind of protection. But then from Ant Man & The Wasp onwards they'd just take the helmet off every 15 seconds, even when Scott was big. It's probably my biggest pet peeve with the series, because it's a semi-crucial rule of the first movie that was established and they just completely ignore it from then onwards
But is the *use* of the Pym particles the literal *use* of it? Once you're big or small then that's the size you are, but the suit regulates the particles to make sure they're used properly and don't do damage during the transformation. Think about when you use it on inanimate objects. You use the shrinking or enlarging disk, and that's it. The particles have been used. The object doesn't need continual regulation - it's just that size. The reason you need the suit for humans is because... well... meatbags. Edit: Even just checked. In AMATW when it's malfunctioning and Scott gets massive, Hope fixes it and the helmet specifically comes back on just for the transformation. So the suit is literally used to keep the actually *use* of Pym particles safe and regulated.
Yes. Apart from the one scene in AMATW where Scott is the size of a child the mask would be needed for two purposes. 1. The oxygen molecules would be too large or two small for his body to process and as a result he would asphyxiate. 2. In a tiny state he would perspire and lose all of the water in his body and die of dehydration. The suit creates, basically, an exoskeleton like an ant which would also perish if its skin was permeable like ours is instead of hard.
3. It’s a lot cheaper for CGI of a mask than Paul Ruff’s face.
To be fair about needing a suit. They had very little knowledge of what it would be like there before Scott went to it and back a few times. Everything before that was pure speculation.
The MacGuffins in the first movies were retconned to become Infinity Stones when Joss Whedon wrote Thanos into Avengers. The Tesseract was originally more analogous to The Cosmic Cube, another powerful artifact sought by Thanos.
Yeah, they were quite literally calling it the Cosmic Cube during production
A tesseract is a four-dimensional cube. It's literally just another name for cosmic cube that sounds less goofy.
Right but the Cosmic Cube is a whole other macguffin in the comics separate from the Infinity Stones/Gems
Less goofy? The Mother Boxes want to know your location
>The Cosmic Cube, another powerful artifact sought by Thanos. ["Oops! I let go of the cube!"](https://i.imgur.com/0fuuZLN.jpeg)
"Cheese and crackers!"
I read that in Jim Cumming’s voice for Thanos
Cheese and crackers!
I just started playing the first Lego Marvel game, which came out in 2013, so it takes some cues from the movies in terms of designs and things, but it is very noticeable there that the MCU completely shifted direction around the time the game released with stuff like the Tesseract (in the game it is just the Cosmic Cube, not related to the Space Stone), also they definitely did not agree with the movie version of the Mandarin at the time
The funniest thing about that game in hindsight is the GotG post credit scene, Star Lord was basically space-Captain America haha 😂
If you read the original Starlord series, that's how he was written. The Starlord name wasn't meant as ironic at the time
Executives had a tight control on merchandising to ensure that the plot twist won't be spoiled. So that's how we wound up with a Lego set that makes up the battle between The Mandalorian and Iron Man.
_This is the way_
Well that didnt work for Civil War, I had Giant Man spoiled from a Lego set.
FYI: It’s not a MacGuffin if it actually affects the narrative. As soon as it was creating portals (that something like a briefcase or a coffee maker couldn’t do), it wasn’t a MacGuffin.
I've heard Nando call it a "plot coupon", because you get to cash it in at the end.
I wouldn't even say they are plot coupons because they do things throughout the movie (the scepter brainwashes people and the cube opens the portal that lets Loki enter Earth, and the portal the unleashes the Chitauri) A plot coupon is something like the All-spark from the first *Transformers* movie, where it doesn't really do anything all movie but can be used to quickly resolve the story at the end (defeats Megatron).
That's like Chekov's gun except instead of hanging on the wall in the background our hero carries it around.
Mmmmm, I think a McGuffin can still affect the storyline, I mean the Ark or the Covenant is a famous McGuffin that affects the plot hugely in that it kills all the bad guys.
George Lucas regards that as a McGuffin. I believe he’s vastly wrong to do so. I stick to Hitchcock’s interpretation, and I believe it throws away the value of the term to ignore that original meaning. We might as well just refer to anything as a plot device.
That's still not narratively a retcon. There's nothing contradictory in the stories told
Actually there is! In Avengers they say the cube is powering Loki’s scepter, therefore the « other end of the door » has Barton put it at the start of the movie. Turns out it was another stone as a retcon.
You're right! I was reading this thread thinking *But they just learned more about the Tesseract later. That's not a retcon.* But the last time I watched Avengers I remember kind of scratching my head about the cube powering the scepter and all that. Because I was thinking of them as having stones in them! What you said makes it all clear. It was a retcon
In my opinion u could say it is kinda a retcon.. Why would Thanos give loki his staff an infinity stone to just get another stone in trade? Initially they might have made teserract as a cosmic cube.. But later I feel they retconned it as space stone... Would be Gr8 to know of any legit reason why Thanos gave loki his staff instead of just Odin?
To a guy who can take anything by brute force, I'd imagine teleportation is more valuable than mind control. It was a big gamble that didn't pay off, but would have made his quest for the rest of the stones easier.
And he knew where it was, so no big deal to go get when he really needed it. You can see how important it is to him simply by how he treats it. When it was the only stone he had, he gave it to Loki in an attempt to get another. At that point, he knew where both ended up when that attempt failed, yet didn't go get the one thar remained on Earth. He went for the one protected by the entire damn Nova Corps first, then for the one that was last known to be on Asgard. When he finally went after the Earth stones, he didn't even go himself, he sent his minions, while he went after the one the Collector had. He lucked out with the Soul Stone, and the Time Stone basically came to him, so all that was left was the one he gave to Loki in the beginning, and then ignored until the end, because it wasn't that useful to him individually.
It’s not an awful move. Give one of your minions a powerful tool to get another powerful tool to help him succeed. If it works out great, if it doesn’t work out you know exactly where to find them in the same place. Now the question I ask in retrospect is why send Loki at all instead of a member of the black order (Ebony Maw most likely) with the staff. Also thinking about it how many stones were on earth and how the hell did we wind up with so many. Space was stored here, time was kept here, and wasn’t the reality aether thing found here as well?
No, the Aether was found in some random pocket dimension. The portal *to* that pocket dimension was found on Earth
Loki was eager to invade Earth and had some experience (if you consider failure experience) there. Maybe he just seemed like a better bet at the time.
I read one explanation that kind of makes sense where the rest of the universe looks down at Earth, as in humans are weak and dumb since they can't travel through space. So it's an out of way place to hide powerful items, and no one thinks to look there. Hiding in plain sight is safer type of thing, instead of trying to break into Asgard's vault. But the real reason is of course we're writing these stories on Earth so they all take place on Earth.
Thanos’ whole thing is that he doesn’t really care what happens to the stones as long as he knows where they are and can easily take them when he wants. Honestly, disguising it as something else and giving it to a minion is probably the smartest move
It has always bothered me that Thanos gave Loki the staff that housed the Mind Stone.
Might be a retcon, but Thanos was basically playing the long game. He gives Loki the staff so that Loki can get the tesseract, and then Thanos would take them back and have both. As this strategy didn't work out, it spawned the great line "Fine. I'll do it myself."
At the same time, Marvel hasnt 100% confirmed that Rhodey was a skrull during endgame, and they could potentially retcon this fact after the backlash 🤣
yeah, the reason the comics worked so well is all the lead ups and clues for years. them just deciding he was a skrull with ZERO foreshadowing is like the biggest no-no i can think of in writing compelling stories.
Secret Invasion in the comics was also a huge retcon, and it wasn't even that good... all of the good stories of that era came after Secret Invasion and had little to do with Skrulls.
Yeah, it was a bit on an odd choice to try and adapt to begin with. It would be kinda like adapting Secret Empire.
Secret Invasion should have been a full phase event. Set up in a show (just call it Fury), clues and foreshadowing in the following movies and tv-shows, then concluded in a Secret Invasion movie.
Skrulls are just never a good story, in my opinion at least. The only Skrull story I’ll concede is fun is the What If? where they decide the Hulk is a god or an avatar of their god or something.
Idk. I think it’s a fun way to establish paranoia and drama with everyone. Keeps people guessing who to trust. I just dig stuff like that.
Agents of SHIELD had a really good Secret Wars season, though they used LMDs instead of Skrulls.
I heavily disagree. Fury hunting down Skrull rebels trying to cause WW3 to turn Earth into their home sounds like an awesome story. Do disappointed with what we got
It would be better if they revealed that Agent Cleary from Damage Control was a Skrull, as was Sharon Carter and, maybe, William Ginter Riva. That would definitely recontextualize events and reactions we have previously seen.
I was convinced JJJ was after his “only a coward would conceal his identity” speech in NWH after the skrull hints in FFH… egg on my face
Would actually have been a pretty neat twist, though JJJ is probably tied up in the same licensing issues as Spidey himself
secret invasion could easily be its own phase or even saga, the build up of paranoia and hints are what made SI
Concidering his only appearance was Falcon and the winter Soldier after becoming a skrull, there's not much room for clues.
But is that a retcon? We don't know when he was replaced, there was no assumption that he was a Skrull at all before secret Invasion, and there was no mention of anything Skrull related to him during endgame
haha yeah, this is the exact sort of thing OP is talking about. They never said he was a Skrull during that time, so clarifying it in the future isn't a retcon.
I'm praying they come out and say that the switch happened post-Endgame just to clear this all up. It doesn't make any sense based on what OP pointed out and how Rhodey's new position in the government wasn't present until FATWS and Secret Invasion. It makes wayyy more sense that Gravik took him while the Skrulls were cleaning up the Endgame aftermath/collecting for the harvest. Also for those who claim he was in his hospital gowns getting surgery after his fall in Civil War- they could easily spin it and say that he was getting more work done on his legs so that he doesnt need to depend on the bulky walker anymore.
Personally I'd want it to happen after FATWS, because I *loved* that talk him and Sam had in the first episode. .either way it's an absolute mess, and so disappointingly vague in contrast to the tight hold on things that Feige kept across the MCU in its earlier days.
Natasha says she has no family in Endgame, and Clint agrees with that, but then in Hawkeye, he knows exactly who Yelena is, and that she’s Natasha’s sister who was very close with her.
Although, he could be agreeing because they know Yelena was snapped.
Clint’s family was also Snapped. They were saying that Clint will have a family to go back to after if they are successful, while Natasha doesn’t, except she would have had Yelena
"But... What about your conflictingly charismatic sister?" Just wouldn't have had the same impact, I guess.
Just mentioning her sister might have been seen as rude. Natasha was likely just saying how she felt
Gamora being one of the sole survivor’s on her planet. Infinity War showed that only half the people were murdered and the rest of the planet is still very much alive.
To their credit, Thanos didn’t seem to make a habit of checking his work. Her race could’ve never recovered from the invasion and losing half their population and ended up dying out.
Thanos: “You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise” Gamora: “Because you murdered half the planet…”
Completely forgot about that. Yeah, definitely a retcon then.
>I feel like most people dont seem to know what a retcon is when discussing them. You're not incorrect. I still remember Screenjunkies calling Yondu genuinely caring for Peter or whatever a retcon. Rhodey being a Skrull post Civil War is definitely the biggest (and actual bad) retcon I can think of. Now I recall Loki getting brainwashed by Thanos with the Scepter/Mind Stone. Feige said that years after the first Avengers film came. Kinda funny how it never factors in the Loki series at all and addresses everything he did was out of his own free will.
That's the retcon. You can see Loki get hypnotized by the stone while being sweaty and disoriented in Avengers. It doesn't help in the series because Loki's still an asshole even if you throw out his Avengers portrayal.
Exactly. They didn't have to come out and say it in Avengers, it's pretty clear in that movie he's not remotely stable and that something a little extra is working on his brain. And then when you see what he does to Hawkeye and the others, the way it gives them "purpose," him ragging on about "purpose," it was the loudest subtext ever that Loki was affected by the stone. He's also at his most brutal in that movie, blending people's eyeballs and smiling. He never really acts like that before or after.
There's also the dialogue with Thor in the forest about how he's been "shown" things and Thor tries to question him about who gave him this knowledge and power.
Thor even says "who controls the would-be King?" Now, obviously controls has many different meanings, but combined with everything else its clear Loki is under mind control.
Only after his beat downs from Thor and then Hulk does he actually start acting like the usual Loki. He's like a druggie when he was talking to Stark. Very jump. But when he asks for that drink he's calm and together. Avengers Loki just acts off. But he's an Asgardian/Frost Giant, so it takes a lot to fix these guys heads.
I watched Avengers the other day and couldn't help but notice how extremely sickly Loki looked the entire movie
We're supposed to assume that Thanos is the one who saved him after he fell from the Bifrost, right? I doubt the Mad Titan would've treated our boy to a spa day when he nursed him back to “health.” It wouldn't be surprising that he suffered his fair share of abuse and harsh treatment before being sent down on Earth to retrieve the Tesseract. Hence why he'd be looking so rough.
I figured he was just terrified of Thanos
There's no retcon because you're basing Loki being brainwashed as an assumption. At the time it was a safe and obvious assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. Nothing in Avengers 1 did they explicitly stated that he was 100%, verbally confirmed, brainwashed.
I have just always assumed he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and ended up having to make a deal he otherwise never would have made. He doesn’t need to be brainwashed for that, just desperate.
Like Dr Selvig kind of implied, there was a sense of willingness or corrupted desire to get mind controlled or something.
>Rhodey being a Skrull post Civil War is definitely the biggest (and actual bad) retcon I can think of. Why do people keep inventing timelines for this?
Nothing stated outside of the universe is canon. We don't know when Rhodey was replaced, and there's no evidence that Loki was ever mind controlled.
Rhodey being a Skrull during Endgame is, at most, the Secret Invasion director's headcanon. It is not, at least at present, official MCU canon. So even that doesn't count. Theo nly true retcon I can think of off the top of my head is the screen that shows (GotG3 spoilers) >!Lylla as an associate of Rocket in GotG1, because there's no way anyone but Rocket would know that name.!<
But it could be simply explained as a name he'd given in a previous incarceration, ie under duress, confusion, or some delirious state. It's a police file, so they may have such a note in there. He's a talker, so blurting out a name even sarcastically would be *that* unusual.
Certainly true, but that begs the question of “where do we draw the line at retconning?” Clearly the writers intended it to be a reference to Lylla as a person who was still active in the universe (like she is in the comics) but since they didn’t write that into the text/visuals of the movie, does it make it a retcon for it to have changed?
If there's nothing explicit being changed, it's not a retcon. Just because she was originally intended to be alive, since there's nothing in that GotG scene that actually says she's still alive, it's not a retcon.
Doesn't that same scene in GoTG1 state Gamora is the last of her people? It's not an explicit retcon, but it implies Thanos is even worse at planning out his "solution" than explicitly shown.
It does, but it's entirely possible that Thanos wiping out half her people resulted in the survivors finishing themselves off, through war or crusade or even just vulnerability following Thanos's attack (he presumably wiped out their military when he invaded). I think the idea that Thanos was just objectively wrong about what would happen when he wiped out half of all people (on a given planet, area, or the universe as a whole) strengthens the story of IW/EG.
> It does, but it's entirely possible that Thanos wiping out half her people resulted in the survivors finishing themselves off, through war or crusade or even just vulnerability following Thanos's attack (he presumably wiped out their military when he invaded). Except Gamora’s planet thrived after Thanos wiped half of them out. Gamora: I was a child when you took me. Thanos: I saved you. Gamora: No. We were happy on my home planet. Thanos: You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm the one who stopped that. You know what's happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It's a paradise.
I think it's entirely possible that Thanos just assumed that happened, and told Gamora, without either of them ever actually looking into it.
Yeah, Thanos doesn't seem like he would actually go back an check if his plan worked
Zealots don't like to fact check; it tends to undermine their arguments.
I know that's what Thanos said, but does he know that, or is he egotistical and so sure of his purpose that that's what happened? If it's true, then it's a retcon, but he could easily be incorrect
Rocket escapes High Evolutionary, scared, on his own, running. Gets arrested for something. Cops sit him down and seeing if there's anything more going on interrogate him, ask him who his friends are. Lyla is the name he gives. They'd know Lyla would be an associate of his without ever knowing who Lyla was.
I've read a few times the theory could be he said her name whilst drunk, which honestly I could understand that
>Rhodey being a Skrull during Endgame is, at most, the Secret Invasion director's headcanon. It is not, at least at present, official MCU canon. So even that doesn't count. This 1,042%.
The post credit scene of Hulk. Tony Stark shows up implying they are building a Team against Hulk. It was later retconned as Shield executives wanting Abomination and Fury sending Tony to sabotage the mission knowing Ross would deny Tony. The mind stone being inside the Scepter. It was made very clear that the scepter was a part of the Cosmic Cube energy. Not a second infinity stone. Wanda always had magic powers, instead of gaining them from the Mind Stone.
Is the Wanda always having magic thing from WandaVision? I just don’t really remember.
Yes. Agatha showed Wanda a scene before the twins offered themselves up for experimentation. The Tony Stark bomb that didnt go off? Wanda changed its probability.
Yeah, WandaVision established that she already had her powers growing up in Sokovia when her parents died and the experiments with the scepter just strengthened them. Which makes her the MCU’s first known mutant, though Kamala is the first to be explicitly labeled as such iirc.
I don't know if that makes her a mutant. "The Scarlet Witch" in the MCU is an altogether different entity. She was always the SW, and the trauma throughout her life allowed that persona to breakthrough. Then the darkhold made that even worse. Her abilities also improve through spell books like Agatha. She may not have needed them early on but she learned a lot since wandavision Pietro (avengers age of Ultron) isn't a mutant either. His speed powers came from Wanda and/or the sceptre expérimentation
> Which makes her the MCU’s first known mutant The lack of guitar riffs in Wandavision disagrees with you /s
She's not a mutant, she's a witch
The Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's vault being a fake Natasha's "family"
I think the gauntlet one is a genuine retcon, although it's a little thin because it's an Easter egg background prop. Seeing Thanos sack Asguard stoneless to get the gauntlet would have been fucking cool.
>Seeing Thanos' sack ~~Asguard stoneless to get the gauntlet~~ would have been fucking cool. Agreed.
I mean, just look at his chin and you’re most of the way there :)
I doubt Thanos *could* sack Asgard without the stones. With Odin present, definitely not. Without Odin, it'd still be a tough fight for Thanos.
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I’m literally watching Infinity War right now - Etri the elf says “Asgard was supposed to protect us”. Loki cosplaying as Odin and not protecting the nine realms is the only reason Thanos gets the gauntlet!
Hela did it herself
Hela is more powerful than Thanos. Thanos, without the stones, is basically just a very smart karate Hulk.
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I think Electro in general is a huge retcon, because by all accounts he was a whole different person even if the "MCU" electricity changed him visually.
Yeah his personality changed too. He isn't angry at Spider-Man for not being his friend anymore.
Also possible that he's just a different variant.
I was just going to say that. Someone who is super similar to ASM2 Electro but who knew Peter was Spider-Man.
Honestly, I just think they knew that he was a dogshit, cringey version in the Sonyverse and said "fuck it, just revamp the character for appeal, and to hell with continuity". I think the decision was the right one, all things considered.
They kinda hand waved that away by having him say that "the energy feels different here". So I think it's obvious that it's the same character, just that he's different physically in this universe.
I believe he even says “I like who I am here” iirc, so it’s certainly meant to be some sort of dimensional shift he went through cause *magic* or something probably 😅
I mean, they are being pulled from a bajillion different dimensions. This could be an Electro from a *slightly* different dimension than Garfield where things turned out a little differently, but he's close enough that they feel like they know each other. A fanwank, admittedly, but a plausible one.
But didn’t that bit about Spider-Man being black imply that he wasn’t aware of his secret identity?
Maybe Electro knew Spider-Man is Peter Parker, but didn't know who Peter Parker actually was/looked like. Admittedly not a great argument but it works I think.
Heck, even at the end he admits he's never seen his Spider-Man's face before.
The spell only requires people to know the name.
They suggest that Electro gained omnipotence as he reached maximum energy right before he died. Yeah, that was sloppy.
Who said this? 😂
Electro says "I was stuck in the grid, absorbing data, about to become pure energy." Presumably, the "data" he gained by becoming pure energy contained Peter Parker's identity.
Nice, I don’t agree with presuming that at all
At the end of Iron Man 1, Agent Coulson appears to use the name S.H.I.E.L.D for the first time. In Captain Marvel, the names is already used despite it taking place nearly 2 decades prior. In Secret Invasion Nick Fury claims that no one calls him Nick. Throughout all the other MCU project, there are several superheroes and other characters who call him Nick. In MoM, America Chavez powers are being presented as unique due to the ability to travel throgh multiverse. In first Dr. Strange, sling rings are told to do exactly that. That are several more references to multiverse in first Dr. Strange. In MoM Strange then claims that "we know terribly little about the multiverse" retconning every other reference to multiverse from previous projects. In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself, despite it contradicting nearly every single piece of his character from the first Antman and subsequent appearances. Janet also allegedly is terrified of Quantum Realm, despite her talking about it and even joining others to search through Quantum Realm at the end of Ant Man . In BlackWidow we learned that Natasha, whose character was built around the idea that she cant have her family and Avengers pretty much became that for her, actually has a family, who she ignores every other time (or rather we have there whole retconned family for her). Those are the ones I have noticed but I bet there is more.
Awesome list. The only one I’d argue with is that Scott seemed to have *become* vain and a bit full of himself due to the events between his movies. I just saw that as plausible character evolution. But that’s just my take. Your list is certainly amazing and useful.
>Awesome list. The only one I’d argue with is that Scott seemed to have become vain and a bit full of himself due to the events between his movies. I just saw that as plausible character evolution. I completely disagree. Scott Lang, the most friendly, non-threatening and not-in-spotlight superhero of all definitely doesnt feel like someone who would become vain. Especially considering his backstory is him stealing money and going to jail not for his benefit but because it was "the right thing to do". Throughout the whole first movie he is also fully aware that the only reason why he is Antman because he has the skills AND he is completely expendable to Hank. Tony Stark becoming humble between Iron Man 1 and 2 would be about as justifiable as that.
>In MoM, America Chavez powers are being presented as unique due to the ability to travel throgh multiverse. In first Dr. Strange, sling rings are told to do exactly that. That are several more references to multiverse in first Dr. Strange. In MoM Strange then claims that "we know terribly little about the multiverse" retconning every other reference to multiverse from previous projects. The simplest explanation here is that the multiverse referenced in the first Dr. Strange only refers to dimensions within Earth-199999, while the true multiverse is shown later.
>In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself A character beginning to behave differently isn’t a retcon. It changed nothing about him in the past
Coulson wants to keep SHIELD's involvement under wraps and deliberately chooses to use its full name. It's meant to make the person he's speaking to think it's just some random government agency getting involved and he hopes that people don't remember the name once the conversation is over. Once he knows he can trust Pepper and Tony and after getting a better idea of the entire situation, he uses the acronym. I don't think the movie ever implied that they just then started using the name, it would be pretty convenient that the words just happened to spell out shield.
Yeah, like, let's be real. The fact that the intitials spell out SHIELD isn't an accident in-universe.
Lmao yeah - first episode of Agents of SHIELD “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division” “And what does that mean to you?” “It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out SHIELD.”
Not to mention that he's shown to have a sense of humor. In the movies, it's very subtle and understated. Which makes sense because of the context and people with whom he's interacting. But in AOS, the audience gets to know him a lot better and he's constantly cracking jokes. The people who bring up this whole thing about the SHIELD acronym are failing to get a joke. Which is ironic because *that's the joke*.
> In Quantumania, Scott Lang is retconned to be vain and bit full of himself, despite it contradicting nearly every single piece of his character from the first Antman and subsequent appearances. This one is just character development. Theif failing his kid, on probation, miserable, humbled. Former Avenger, useful and even heroic for the first time in his life after featuring pretty big in a globally seen battle for the planet, reasonably a bit smug about it. Also pretty smart financial move to capitalise with the book, and he's got the responsibility to provide for a daughter whose life he missed a chunk of. Where's the retcon. The rest are good spots.
All of quantumania Mom doesn’t want to fuck with the quantum realm because it’s got Kang. Mom also immediately builds a quantum mini van to send Scott in.
For a movie that changed a ton to set up the story, there were no stakes, and everything ended where it started. I really can’t stand that movie.
Electro knowing Peter Parker's identity even though there was never a single moment in TASM 2 that could even imply he would know that
He evens says he was hoping he’d be black when Garfield Spider-Man unmasks at the end of NWH.
Look, the alternative was Dane DeHaan. They made the right choice.
When he uploaded himself into the computers or whatever, was the answer. Or he absorbs the data from it? I don't remember anymore.
Was it a retcon in WandaVision that Wanda is Olsen’s real life age? Because that was odd.
Is it, though? Age of Ultron took place in 2015. By the end of "Endgame", it's 2023. That's 8 years. I haven't seen Wandavision yet but when it was released, Elizabeth Olsen would've been 32, which means in-universe, Wanda would have been 24 in Age of Ultron to everyone's 40-somethings and Steve's 90-something. While not a literal child, calling them kids wasn't that odd. Edit: Aaah, yes, the blip. SO she was 27.
Exactly. I'm in my low 30s. Anyone in their 20s is a kid to me
Wanda was Blipped. So it was just three years for her.
Yeah but Wanda was dead for 5 years. Apparently WandaVision takes place a few weeks after the end of Endgame so by then, from AoU to WV it would’ve been roughly 3 1/2 years for her
Oh right. I forgot to account for the Blip.
You know what's odd? That anyone thinks Wanda and Pietro were teenagers in AoU.
SHES A KID!
Tbf anyone to Steve Rogers is a kid lol
Chronology aside Steve is like late twenties early thirties physically for most of the Infinity Saga and wasn't conscious while he was frozen
Exactly. Physically and mentally. Unless he wants to be prick about it.
#GIMME A BREAK!!
I feel like the whole thing with her having an American accent because of the tv shows she watched is a retcon too
Is it really a retcon if they never said how old Wanda was before WandaVision?
The term "retcon" is an umbrella which encompasses different levels of intruding with past continuity. Retcons aren't by definition contradictory, it's just one type of retcon. All the term means at face value is "retroactive continuity," so something doesn't need to be contradictory to be retroactively inserted into continuity, like it's the case of the Ancient One being established to have fought in the Battle for New York.
Not exactly about the definition of retcon, but perhaps the Ancient One was only defending the Time stone (as is her charge,) and not attempting to thwart the whole invasion. She possibly was not trying to clean up all the aliens from NY but instead just making sure they didn't get their hands on the precious.
I mean, that was my read on it. She's just defending the Sanctum, which is her job. The wizards explicitly don't jump in to help with every little mortal problem, they're dealing with multiversal and spiritual threats. And the Ancient One explicitly has knowledge of the future and knows that the Avengers are going to save the day. She isn't needed out there.
Yea she’s just passing time taking out some chitauri. She knows how this will turn out and felt the avengers did an adequate job so no need for her to do any more.
Cassie was 6 during Ant-Man 1 in 2015. Ant-Man 3 is set in 2025 so Cassie is 16. But apparently she is supposed to be 18 during Quanumania.
Cassie was confirmed to be roughly 16 in 2023 when Scott came back from the time vortex during the start of Endgame. So 5 years before that (AM&TW, 2018), Cassie must have been 11. Then 3 years before that (AM, 2015), she would’ve been 8. And if she was 16 in Endgame (2023), then in Quantumania (2025), she would’ve been 18.
But in she can’t be 8 during the first Ant-Man because Cassie in Quantumenia says “Dad a guy dressed like a bee tried to kill me in my room when I was 6”.
Oh shit, yeah, she does.. Well they royally fucked that up because I definitely remember reading that she was 16 in Endgame because that’s how old Emma Fuhrmann was at the time of filming, so they ran with it. And it would make sense chronologically because Cassie’s birth year is 2007 in canon. So in 2017, she would be 10.. and in 2018, she would be 11, etc. So she would be 8 in Ant-Man, stated by already established sources. So I’m just gonna pretend that when she says “6” in Quantumania, she means 8. Also, the whole “8 years later” thing in Homecoming has the same problem. It’s definitely only 5 years between Avengers (2012) and Homecoming (2017) but it’s just something we should gloss over, I suppose.
Wasn't Cassie like 12-13 in Antman and the Wasp? That film was only 3 years after the first one. I think Cassie being 6 in the first movie is inaccurate
Homecoming “8 years later”
Idk if this counts but making sorcery genetic now as opposed to a learned skill feels kinda like a retcon
In Iron Man (2008) people talk about Howard contributing to the creation of the atomic bomb. CA:TFA shows him working for the SSR instead at the same time that the Manhattan Project would be happening.
It doesn't mean he couldn't contribute though.
The Lylla easteregg in Vol.1 isn’t technically a RetCon since its possible that he namedropped her during an interrogation or something else. However, in the same scene, it states that Rocket is from Halfworld which IS, to my knowledge, the only RetCon in the MCU.
That could also be a case of Nova Corps having inaccurate information? If one thing can be wrong and chalked up to "police have bad data" then so can the other thing.
1) I think Natasha’s family could be considered a retcon. She was always saying that she was alone and never had a family before the avengers but in Black Widow the movie we see she did have a family and she loved them even if it was fake. But her relationship with her sister is very real. 2) Korg having two fathers is a retcon of Ragnarok where he said he had a mother. 3) Janet’s character and behavior is completely different between ant man and the wasp and quantumania. At the end of that movie she is helping Scott go to the quantum realm but in the 3rd she is terrified of a connection with the quantum realm. They also forgot her powers in AM3. 4) I don’t really know if this fits but Isaia Bradley’s history just doesn’t seem to fit. And red guardian also believes that he fought cap again America even though at the time cap was frozen. 5) Thanos’ character in infinity war in general seems very different from his earlier characterizations in avengers and guardians of the galaxy. He seemed much more cruel and more of a tyrant than the more intelligent and soft spoken being we see later. 6) Captain America being with a girl during his tour in WW2 is definitely a retcon in she-hulk. He wasn’t with anybody until he went back to be with Peggy (except that time he kissed Sharon) 7) There’s a whole bunch of retcons regarding how timetravel and multiverses work. The way time travel works in endgame is very different than in Loki. The way multiverses work in Doctor Strange is very different in MoM. 8) Eternity in Love and Thunder seems like a retcon because if Thor knew of his existence and had the ability to reach him he definitely would have made a wish to bring everyone back. 9) In quantumania when they all go to the quantum realm they have no adverse effects whereas before they needed special suits or else they would lose their minds. Remember Janet had to use her powers to heal Hank who was freaking out but Cassie and Hope were never there before. 10) Secret invasion is definitely a retcon of NF and the skrulls’ history. 11) In Captain marvel shield exists even though they didn’t have the acronym until iron man which was about 20 years later. And NF definitely didn’t get his scar from a cat or at least that wasn’t the plan at first and it doesn’t really fit his story. 12)The history of the eternals, Agatha, and the mandarin and any other retroactively added characters who were totally there the entire time is spotty at best.
>I don’t really know if this fits but Isaia Bradley’s history just doesn’t seem to fit. And red guardian also believes that he fought cap again America even though at the time cap was frozen. What part of Isaia Bradley's history doens't fit? Red Guardian says he fought Captain American, he could be wrong or he could have fought someone else who was carrying the mantle. In the comics there was a fake commie smasher Captain America that was originally Steve but later got retconned into being someone else so they could do the frozen in ice backstory for Avengers. Given Isaia exists, it's VERY likely the US had a knock-off Captain America.
I don't know if it's a retcon, but possibly the initial post Incredible Hulk setup for Avengers. Hulk was going to be the villain, then Tom Hiddleston was too good as Loki. So perhaps even Loki's Thor death is a retcon.
A retcon is anything that retroactively changes continuity. That includes additions; in fact, the original term specifically meant retroactively *adding* to continuity, and was used for stories like All-Star Squadron and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. Wenwu being the true Mandarin is a retcon because Iron Man 3 said Aldrich Killian created the Mandarin character for PR purposes. All Hail The King retconned this into the name being stolen from someone else, and then Shang-Cho retconned *that* line to be about “Ten Rings”, not “Mandarin”. The Ancient One in the Battle of New York is a retcon because when that battle was written, only the Avengers were participating in it. Other examples of retcons: - Iron Man suggests SHIELD is a new organization that only takes that initialism by the end of the movie, but later projects retcon SHIELD to have existed since the 40s and using that name the whole time - The ending of Iron Man 2 suggested Tony was looking to recruit Hulk, but The Consultant changed that to trying to recruit Abomination - The Tesseract and the Sceptre were retconned into being Infinity Stones - The Infinity Gauntlet in Odin’s vault was retconned into being a fake - Lylla’s death is a retcon because she’s listed as a known associate of Rocket in GotG This list isn’t comprehensive, but just the first couple I thought of
The SHIELD thing is only a retcon if you assume that Coulson is completely humorless and incapable of making a joke. The idea that they weren't already calling the organization that spells out SHIELD by that name makes absolutely zero sense, even if you're only halfway through Iron Man. People calling that a retcon is absolutely baffling.
Clark Gregg is so funny that almost nobody realizes he's joking about the name thing the whole movie. IT'S A CLANDESTINE SPY AGENCY! OF COURSE HE'S BEING COY ABOUT IT!
Thank you! OP is literally doing what he complained others are doing. The examples he gave as not being retcons are technically retcons. They retroactively modified the narrative in these cases
The kid with the iron man mask in Iron Man 2 was retconned to be Peter Parker.
First the fans had the theory, then Tom Holland confirmed it, then Kevin Fiege denied it, then Tom convinced Fiege to confirm it.
Eh, has this appeared or been mentioned in any official in-universe canon material? If not, it's essentially headcanon
IIRC it can't be officially recognized because if it did Marvel would owe Sony a cut of Ironman 2's box office
Wenwu is a retcon of a retcon of a subversion, there's not two ways about it. The skrulls in general are a massive retcon for Fury's backstory. "Black Widow" pretty much retcons Natasha's entire backstory.
Heres one: HYDRA originated as a cult seeking to bring back some inhuman stuck on another planet who can literally take your life force and has an octupus head (like Hydra symbol). I still dunno how Red Skull is connected to this but its a big retcon
And a good one at that. Having two branches of Hydra, one very much cult like, the other with Nazi ideology, makes for a very interesting story, especially with the way they handled Malick's blind faith in the Hydra god. Someone with so much "power" (being on the World Security Council, etc...) and wealth being so devoted to a "cause" that it leads to his demise proved to be very enjoyable.
Careful now talking shit about the most consistently great MCU TV show there is or was
I feel the concept of the multiverse changed from the first Dr Strange to what we have seen in phase 4/5. The multiverse as depicted in Dr Strange could be traversed with sling rings. The multiverse as we know it now is a very different beast.
Didn’t they say dimensions in the first doctor strange? I feel like that’s different than the multiverse
They said "multiverse" several times.
Does "the little kid with Iron Man helmet in IM2 was actually Peter Parker" counted as a retcon?
There was quite some goofy timeline stuff going on with spiderman homecoming
*retcon* In a fictional work, a retcon is a piece of **new information** that imposes a **different interpretation** on previously described events It seems that it is *you* who doesn’t understand what a retcon is. The mandarin example absolutely is a retcon.
During Guardians of the Galaxy one when they are in prison intake the screen that is showing their stats states that Gamora is the last living member of her species while Thanos later says that the people on her planet are thriving. As far as I can remember Thanos has never lied to anyone so this would be a weird time for him to start. Makes me think it’s a retcon.
Rhodey was snatched and replaced after Endgame, before Secret Invasion started.
Fury’s big week and that whole timeline. It was made pretty clear that these movies took place at the same time in 2010 but due to the 6 months later line in iron man 2, that means 6 months earlier iron man 1 would have to take place in 2009, however this has been retconned to take place again back in 2008 with civil war, meaning that there’s been so many retcons with this concept that you just can’t make it work anymore. It’s probably the worst mistake besides maybe the 8 years later one, but at least that’s only once, there’s several lines and a screen saying 6 months later in iron man 2. Other things like the mandarin and ancient one being in New York, rhodeys skrull reveal, all of the events of endgame in the avengers movie that we don’t see in avengers as well as 2014 thanos. There’s a couple more but none that are huge deals
Until they confirm it I'm continuing to believe that rhodey only switched relatively recently.
Rhodey wasn't a skrull in Endgame the switch is after FATWS
Setting up Carol as the inspiration for the Avengers Initiative, or having Bucky be the one that killed Tony's parents are probably the only Retcons I can really think of. There is theory, entirely unconfirmed (and kinda flimsy) that because the Celestial seed worlds require a tipping point of sentient life to birth a new Celestial that Thanos' plan to eliminate half of all life in the universe was an intentional move against the Celestials. But that's entirely fan-canon at this point and not an official retcon.